Court Rejects GE's Argument Against Cleaning up Hudson River

Date: January 28, 2009

Source: News Room

A federal court recently rejected General Electric Co.'s challenge of a superfund law requiring it to clean up polluted sites, including its controversial site along the Hudson River in upstate New York. U.S. District Judge John Bates in Washington rejected the company's argument that the agency violated its due process rights under the U.S. Constitution in the way it implemented the statute. "The court rejects GE's novel, but considerable challenge," Bates said in his order. GE was ordered in 2002 to dredge pollutants, including PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, that its plants in Hudson Falls and Fort Edward dumped into the river, a directive that was delayed because of disagreements over how the cleanup should take place. The EPA has said that GE discharged as much as 1.3 million pounds of PCBs into the Hudson River from 1947 to 1977 and estimates the entire cleanup will cost as much as $750 million. As part of the PCB cleanup, sediments will be removed by dredges and transported by barge to nearby processing facilities now nearing completion. They will then be shipped by rail for disposal at a facility in Andrews, Texas, owned by Waste Control Specialists LLC.

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